- The kale started growing again. We’d grown and harvested it. Well, my wife, really. I helped buy supplies. Provided extra hands as needed. The kale took off initially, then wilted under a combined attack – heat, insects, sun. Wife battled on, then clipped it back. Per her orders, I moved its planter off the patio. I put them in the bush’s shade. Matter of convenience. Surprise: the kale is back. Hasn’t been watered since harvest two plus weeks ago, so she began watering it. It seems to like that shady spot.
- Tomatoes are doing well. Great to go out and pluck tomatoes as required. Ditto, the squash. Romaine is all gone, though. Sad face.
- Did some wardrobe culling. My wife’s simplify switch suddenly turned on. Ergo, I am expected to participate. Out went five bags of clothing between her and me. Two bags of books. Book sellers aren’t buying. Those like Powell’s who buy wouldn’t accept these books. The books are too worn. A bag of shoes. Old blender.
- Culling is a serious matter. Embarrassing, too. How much do I need? Well, I’m sixty-five. Things have been acquired for different eras and their needs. Much of it is from my suit and marketing days. Yes, wore suits. Did trade shows. Visited customer sites. Also required for when I returned to company headquarters. That was my U.S. Surgical Days. I worked in California. Headquarters was in Connecticut. Tyco acquired us. Talk about a crazy time. Yeah, time to get rid of those shirts. The ties were already gone. I left Tyco in 1999. Still did marketing work after that for a period for another startup involved with coping with peripheral and coronary chronic total occlusions. It was going under so I went on to Network ICE in 2000, where suits were no longer required.
- Also departing my wardrobe were my jockstraps, sweat bands, and racquetball gloves. Haven’t played in two decades. There it all was, buried at the drawer’s bottom, waiting for daylight.
- Purged underwear, too. I had enough underwear, I found, to go without washing them for fifty days. Why so many? Well, a large number was undies which no longer fit. Good-bye, I told them. Blew them a kiss. Now I have enough for twenty days. Don’t judge me. I judge myself enough for all of us.
- Ten belts were surrendered. All leather. Browns, tans, blacks, burgundy. Tested first. I could see where I wore them. What holes were utilized. Usually the third or fourth. The test today was that the belt must reach at least the second hole. The results amazed me. I generally couldn’t get the tip to the buckle. I had no idea that leather would shrink so much. Only four belts now remain. Black, brown, fancy, and plain.
- Catching up on the wildfire news in the U.S. west. Bootleg Fire still burns. Sixty percent contained. 420,000 acres. Drought is spreading. Deepening. Lightning strikes are causing more fires. I turn to other world news. Move beyond the Olympics. Past the spiking — again — COVID-19 numbers. Past the tales of regretful vaccine hesitant folks who are woke after suffering themselves or losing someone close. On to Europe, where Italy, Greece, and Turkey are evacuating tourists due to wildfires. It’s a hot, hot, hot world, and it’s getting hotter.
- Absorbing how much floofitude is on exhibit by a cat’s encounter with a spider or cob web. We have loads of them. Webs, that is, not cats. Just have three cats. Probably have so many webs because we have a strict no-kill spider policy. It’s an unending chore cleaning webs out of corners and from ceilings, walls, patio, porch, and garage. Spiders love throwing up webs. I opened the living room patio door this morning. Stepped out. Breathed in. Considered the browning landscape. Then turned to return inside. Walked straight into a web. Some spider must have seen the door open and hurried a dragline across there.
- The cats have different reactions to webs. Papi, aka Youngblood, the Ginger Blade, and Meep, is the youngest and most graceful. When he encounters a web, he immediately backs away and goes around it. Boo, our large-size bedroom panther with the small velvet paws, hurries through the web while shaking his head. Tucker, the big black and white alpha cat, stops, shakes his head, washes, and then shoulders on. I’ve witnessed this several times over the months — seriously, the number of webs and how quickly they emerge staggers me — spiders are productive little critters — and I’m certain about my assessment on the cats’ behavior.
- Writing has been entertaining. Yes, that’s the term I’ll employ. Absorbing will work as well. I’ve gone surprising places with the story. Then pause as I think, oh, WTF, and ponder the direction. I keep telling myself, just get out of your own way, fool. Don’t overthink anything. Just write. That works. Just need to hurdle myself. An interesting noir style has emerged. So I have a science fiction mystery thriller noir going.
- Got my coffee. The day’s second cup. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. Then I’ll go clean off spider webs. Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music
Sndy, Sndy. I do like that day.
Today is Sunday, July 11 (7/11), 2021. I remember the first time I ever visited a 7/11 convenience store. I was twelve. One was built along the edges of our housing development. We could walk to it for gum, candy, ice cream bars, whatever. Mom would send me on missions to procure bread, milk, and cigarettes. Salems or Kools. She shifted brands. Walking to the store was our era’s equivalent of surfing the net. Just killing the day.
Today’s daylight began at 5:45 AM and will end at 8:48 PM. Minutes are starting to be shaved off each day. Soon we’ll be heading toward the time change. Then the earth’s trip will move my hemisphere away from the sun’s pleasures. Autumn will drop on us. Winter. We’ll be racing toward the shortest day of sunlight and I’ll be longing for sunshine.
We expect cooler temps today, lows in the lower sixties F, highs around 97 degrees F. No rain in sight. Wildfire smoke soils the blue sky. Two fires east of us by a hundred miles feeds the smoke. Watch your time outside as the air quality slides down the scale into the unhealthy zone.
My brain has opened the day with Don Henley singing “Dirty Laundry” from 1982. The morning music began first with “Those Shoes” by The Eagles. Thinking about that album (The Long Run) took me onto a memory path where I visited with my wife’s family and her sister’s husband. We both enjoy rock, although he, a Vietnam vet and Purple Heart recipient, doesn’t deviate from a narrow definition of what should be heard. He despised disco with a deep passion. Did appreciate soul, R&B, and blues, but had no use for country or rap. He really enjoyed “Dirty Laundry”. And here we are.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music
“Should I try to do some more? Twenty-five or six to four.”
That’s how it briefly felt (befuddled and dazed), trying to scope the time when a dream’s sharp end poked me suddenly awake. Turned out to be 2:33 AM. A trip to release some fluids was in order, followed by a need to add more fluids. Cats, curious about what I’m doing up, seeing an opportunity for a meal, cosied up with purrs and mips. I opened the back door and let cool mountain air and clear starlight seduce me for a few minutes before regular programming was resumed.
Sunrise on June fourth Friday of 2021 came a few hours later, 5:46 AM. We ended up over ninety F yesterday. The weather masters all insist that today will top out in the high eighties, same claim as yesterday, so I believe we’ll peek into the low nineties before the Earth’s movement takes the sun out of our sky at 8:43 PM.
While ambulating about the hills yesterday, “I Ain’t the One” by Lynyrd Skynyrd (1973) started playing in my mind. I’d been thinking about conspiracy theories, partly because, news, reading of the fiction and non-fiction type, and partly, you know, fiction writing. In fiction land, I’d just finished reading “The Searcher” by Tana French a few days ago, and am now into “The Long Way Home” by Louise Penny along with “A House in the Neighborhood” by Bob Mustin, enjoying them all. Before that lot, I’d read several Lee Child books from the Jack Reacher series, and a few by each by Jonathan Kellerman, Craig Johnson, and Keigo Higashino. Parallel to them, I read “The Grammarians” and just finished reading “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis. Almost all these feature some conspiracy theory thinking. Happens naturally when things happen in fiction and explanations are tasted for what and why. Over in the non-fiction side, “The Fifth Risk” is about DOE concerns about the U.S. electric grid and the Trump administration’s approach to things. Their approach included conspiracy theories about what bureaucrats and political appointees are up to. An interesting albeit painful read.
I queried my head about what conspiracies have to do with “I Ain’t the One”. It took a while of noodling to realize that buried at the song’s end was the clue. Here’s the song’s final lyrics.
Got bells in your mind, mama
And it’s easy to see
I think it’s time for me to move along
I do believe
I must be in the middle of some kind of conspiracy
Lynyrd Skynyrd – I Ain’t the One Lyrics | Genius Lyrics
I muttered a bit at my mind about that feeble connection. I mean, come on, man.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and please get the vax. Cheers.
Monday’s Theme Music
Time again for Michael’s May Monday Mocha Madness! Grab your mocha and do-si-do. Except, I have no mocha at hand, alas. Well, I’ll just dance with my coffee, although Michael’s May Monday Coffee Madness lacks the alliteration the mocha provided.
No matter. Today is the third, and it’s the first Monday in May of 2021. The sun’s initial showing came at 6:04 AM, while the sun will take it’s final bow at 8:12 PM. Between those hours, evidence is accumulating that we’ll have a traditional spring day in Ashland, high on sunshine, with moderately warm temperature tempered by some cooling breezes. No clouds have shown themselves today, so far. They may have just forgotten to set their alarm or something.
Musically, are you ready for a little prog rock with flute? I’m channeling a 1969 Jethro Tull, “Living in the Past”. Isn’t that apropos for 2021 in the U.S., when so many are longing for the past, and some idyllic posturing of same?
Happy and I’m smiling
Walk a mile to drink your water
You know I’d love to love you
And above you there’s no other
We’ll go walking out
While others shout of war’s disaster
Oh, we won’t give in
Let’s go living in the past
Once I used to join in
Every boy and girl was my friend
Now there’s revolution, but they don’t know
What they’re fighting
Let us close our eyes
Outside their lives go on much faster
Oh, we won’t give in
We’ll keep living in the past
h/t to AZLyrics.com
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Comfort Floof
Comfort Floof (floofinition) – An animal who is trained to calm, console, or relax people.
In use: “University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, introduced two comfort floofs in December, 2020 — Melena, a 2-year-old Golden Retriever, and Starbucks, a 2-year-old Chocolate Labrador Retriever — to visit with children at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.”
Stick To It
Are you familiar with the Gorilla Glue Girl’s hair-mix-up fiasco? Out of a needed product, she made a decision that didn’t work as planned. The mistake earned her time as the web’s focus. Her fortunes spilled over into an SNL skit last Saturday.
I feel for her. Making bad decisions and mistakes is a human trait. The worst I’ve usually done is grabbed the wrong keys or the wrong sunglasses. Although there was one time when I was carrying one thing for the refrigerator and another for the trash and was about to put the one in the other but then caught myself.
I’ve had moments of panic when I thought I did the wrong thing. Once, when I was sixteen, I boarded a Greyhound bus to head south. I’d been up visiting Mom in Pittsburgh, PA. Now I was traveling south to southern West Virginia, where I lived with Dad. I don’t know what the deal is. It was late, like after ten PM. I may have fallen asleep. Next thing that I know, the bus was moving and the driver was talking about stops in Florida.
Florida! Man, I didn’t want to go to Florida. I was going home. But a little later, he announced, like an afterthought, “We’ll be in Charleston, West Virginia, in about three hours.”
Some time was required before my breathing returned to normal and the sweat dried on my body. I did not go to sleep again; I stayed awake, fearful of ending up far away from where I wanted to be.
No, wait; the worst was when I was checking out of an Atlanta hotel. I’d been there for a week on business. Now it was time to roll for the airport. Part of my travel routine is to slip my retired military ID into my shirt pocket for easy access when I’m going through security. I also think it saves time identifying me should the plane ever crash. My photo ID would be right there in my shirt. It’ll work if I still have my shirt on after the accident, if the ID isn’t thrown from the pocket, and if my face isn’t mangled or burned past the point that a photo ID would help.
Anyway, on this day as I headed out of the hotel, I dropped my plastic hotel key card into the box for that purpose and headed for the airport. Then I arrived there and found, oh, shit, you guessed it: I’d dropped off my military ID instead of my card key.
Well, I immediately called the hotel, explained it all, and asked them to overnight it via FedEx on my company’s account, so problem solved.
What about you? Do you have a story to share that shows how you commiserate with G3’s predicament that you’re willing to share?
Saturday’s Theme Music
A new Saturday has arrived. (Momentarily, The Who sing, “Meet the new Saturday, same as the old Saturday… I haven’t had my coffee. Forgive me.)
Sunset came at 7:35 AM and we expect sunset at 5:14 PM here in Ashland. It’s rained through the night and morning, leaving us with gray clouds competing with blue skies and a 37 degree F temperature. The low temp is going to be 29 and the high is expected at 48 on this 23rd day of January, 2021.
Today’s music is “Torn” as covered by Natalie Imbruglia in 1997. First, a side note: some female co-workers in 1997 really disliked “Torn”. “She’s lying naked on the floor,” one would say with vehemence. “That’s disgusting.” She didn’t think about the song and that symbolism; lying naked on the floor was too much.
Reading about QAnon members reaction to President Biden being sworn in last night after Biden’s predecessor went into hiding in Florida, those conspiracists seemed torn about what was going on. Many were asking, “What’s going on? I don’t understand?” Others, with anger displayed in caps and multiple exclamation points and sharply chosen hateful words, were torn with emotions, claiming they’d been betrayed. Others tried calming them down by urging patience because there’s more to come.
Myself, I was torn about getting out of bed this morning. Caught in that wondrous place where I’m neither fully asleep nor awake, moving seemed like a gross violation of the moment, never mind leaving the warm bed. But the cats, torn about fighting one another, jumping on me, and pawing on the pet door to be let out, finally made me open my eyes and worm out of sleep.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get a vaccine, if you haven’t already. Here’s the music.
Stuck In Arsehold
I was stuck in Arsehold for the last two weeks. You may have experienced the same.
I’ve been writing a novel while locked away. That’s not so different from my normal life, where I’m always working on a novel. Many people think I’m working on one novel forever and a day, but I’ve finished many. I shrug them off; I enjoy novel writing.
I think under ordinary circumstances, this would have been finished a few months ago. These aren’t normal times, at least for me. I’m assuming a lot with those words. It’s sadly probably normal for quite a few people to stay locked up in one place, with limited contact for other people. I think of prisons. Nursing homes. Hospitals. Yeah, getting downright depressing, isn’t it?
Some say that such solitude is a gift. I’m not one. While I’m a solitary person, I like outside stimulation. (Sounds a bit naughty, doesn’t it?) Like to walk to clear my mind, shift into writing mode, and slip into the noisy solitude of a good cuppa coffee in a coffee shop, hunch over my laptop, and tap away.
All that normal-for-me isn’t available now. Coronavirus lockdown, you know. Although I have coffee and space, I also have wife and cats. They struggle with my writing boundaries. My wife tries respecting them, but news of the world sets her off. I also don’t try enforcing my isolation with her, as she’s in the same situation as me. She’s much more verbal, however, and craves other contact. While she’s dancing and exercising Monday through Friday via Zoom, and meets with her book club once a month with Zoom, and Zooms into a coffee klatch almost every week, she likes expressing her opinions and insights vigorously and out loud. There’s usually a lot of swearing involved, too. She’s quite passionate about social justice, equality, human rights, and women’s rights. She also hates Trump and has little respect for most other Republicans. So I try to indulge, but then I suffer. Either way, one of us must suffer in our situation. We get over it, but it’s not ideal.
The cats, however, don’t give a damn that I’m writing, reading, playing a game, sleeping, eating, showering, or sitting on the toilet. Three cats share ownership over me. They have their own secret agendas, which surprisingly, often involves me. Part of that is which cat owns the most of me, and whether that’s acceptable to the other cats.
Between wife, news of the world, the coming and going of the muses, and the cats, novel writing progress has been uneven.
But I persevere. Sometimes, the worse interruption is by me to myself. Self-doubt. Imposter syndrome. General malaise. It struck hardest in Arsehold.
Arsehold is a place in my novel, wholly made up. I came up with the name months ago, a whim that made me laugh. I stuck with it, creating the setting around the name, devising the history of how it came to be. Yet, my characters struggled to get through Arsehold. I naturally responded, per my proclivities, to overanalyze what was going on and why, attempting to seek the root of my issues. I thought it might be the general tone. Perhaps some of the introduced characters weren’t clear enough. Maybe, maybe my characters shouldn’t be in Arsehold. And what happens after Arsehold?
Writing helps me think by creating a funnel through which I must focus. With all this mental flaying, I did a lot of writing about the novel in progress, addressing the concept, characters, story, plot, locations and settings, etc. Eventually, I took all the assembled material of the novel in progress, one hundred twenty-five thousand words, and began reading, editing, and revising, putting the story into the order that I think it’ll be in published form.
That helped. By the time I’d reached Arsehold (almost sounds like a song lyric — I can hear CCR doing stuck in Arsehold instead of Lodi), I’d discovered that the errors that I thought I was seeing weren’t there. It always scares me to think or say, hey, this is pretty damn good, about what I’m writing, but that’s what I concluded. Of course, it’s my work; if I didn’t think it was good, maybe I should be working on something else, right?
Anyway, I think I might get through Arsehold this week (knock on wood, he said, tapping the side of his head). Got my coffee; time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
I was vacuuming yesterday and writing in my head when a song, “You Got Your Troubles”, plugged into the ol’ mental stream. Although I knew the lyrics and melody, looking up the year and artist was required. I guess it was the 1960s but that’s a broad range. Wikipedia informed me that the performing artists were The Fortunes, and it was a hit in 1965, when I was nine. The Fortunes had two other hits that I recognized, so I’m pretty embarrassed that I didn’t know who they are.
“You Got Your Troubles” is a song despairing a romantic breakup. Those words, though, you got your troubles, I’ve got mine, slip nicely into the 2020/2021 maelstrom. ‘Bout the only folks who don’t seem to have troubles are the super wealthy, who are becoming superwealthier as others cope with their troubles. My troubles, of course, aren’t deep. I’m more like a cat who’s dissatisfied with the treat offered to them, or a writer disappointed in how a story is going. Nothing deep or serious, other than irritation that we have an outgoing POTUS living in an alternate reality attempting to drag more in with him. There are trombies who eagerly swim along with him, exclaiming, “Yes, let’s go to the alternate reality and everything will be happy! Give me more Kool Aid.”
Stay positive (as I do, ha, ha), test negative, wear a mask, and vaccinate. Here’s the music.
